I turned up at the hole in the ground at dawn, and there were three guards there instead of the usual one. I was wearing my Dance of Death armour and had my Haladie and a disguised Lightreaver out as I normally would for the students.

Myantha arrived shortly after me. She was wearing a tight dark green leather outfit with light chainmail over her chest and metal bracers and greaves. She didn’t make a sound when she walked. She had twin swords in back holsters. They were curved, single-bladed weapons. They were shorter than the signature Al’rashian blade and were only single-handed swords where, whereas the Al’rashian blade could be single or double-handed. I don’t know what the fascination with the single-bladed weapons was. Here, swords were very ornate and had some sort of enchantment.

“The Trial is empty, Ma’am,” the sergeant told her. I have also notified Aldrossford that this is happening. They want to know what is happening.”

Myantha looked at me. I shrugged. “We will let you know as soon as we know, sergeant.”

“Yes, Ma’am. They will probably be sending someone to investigate.”

Myantha just nodded. She looked at me. “Are you ready?”

I nodded, and we jumped into the hole. I landed beside her, and she looked at the walls. There was no light; she could see in the pitch dark.

“The Trial will have adjusted to our levels. You have no students to average things down.”

I just nodded. Then I got a request to join a party, which I accepted. Myantha’s health was shown, and her position was added to my map, which was helpful.

“It’s poison. That won’t worry you?” she asked.

“Lead the way,” I said.

The first rats were bigger and at a higher level than before. There were also more of them. I was watching her fight just as she was watching me. She was very graceful and had no wasted movements. Whatever her sword technique was it was efficient and smooth.

I was more than halfway between combining Steel Serpent and Razor's Edge into my own Haladie/knife technique, but I was not there yet. I felt clumsy next to her, but I wasn’t too far behind in the kill count. I will need to push myself. I might start using more skilled strikes.

She was a bit faster than me, but I think I had more endurance.

“These runs holding back for students have slowed me down,” I said as I started harvesting. “Let's clear the floor, and then we can explore without being interrupted.”

“Lead the way,” she said.

The floor went smoothly, but as the trial scaled the difficulty up, it must have reached a limit it couldn’t pass.

Myantha had many blade skills and some air spells. She was also almost completely silent, even when fighting. She was faster than me and obviously had a very good dual-blade technique, as well as Ambidextrous, or maybe even its successor, Dual Wield.

Once it was clear, I led the way to the nearest point. It appeared to be a random place in the middle of the corridor.

“Why here?” Myantha asked, looking at the stone walls and rough floor.

“Because in the multitude of layouts, this trial has on this and the third floor, there are always six points that are included. This is one of them.”

“Really. Always the six on both floors? You have a mapping skill?” I nodded. “So the six are likely to be on the middle floor as well.” I nodded again. It is nice not having to explain everything.

I started with Spectral Vision (See-thru), but nothing really stood out, and I didn’t really expect it to. I switched to Manasight. The mana flows in this Trial are quite structured, and this was where it was flowing to and from.

“A Mana conduit?” I asked.

“Possibly,” Myantha could follow the mana too.

I engaged Mana Sensitivity and cast out Mana Web (Sensing).

“What is that?” Myantha said suddenly.

“I don’t sense anything different. What was it?” I asked.

“You did it. It is something you did,” she replied.

“Ah. It is called Mana Web (Sensing) and is used to sense mana fluctuations.”

“I have not seen anything like that before.” It seemed like she was accusing me of something, but I just ignored her as I was getting feedback from the web.

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“It is rat-flavoured mana, but there are other flavours there too.”

My Lore was helping me analyse the mana flavours. Spider and Lizard, certainly abut under that stone and earth. I squatted down and kept sensing. I vaguely knew Myantha was basically just watching me.

Can I change the flavour? Not the big flavours—they are too strong—but the minor flavours. I tried to apply my Mana Disruption to it. There was a small, small effect. While it is disrupted, could I add a flavour?

I looked at the Haladie in my hand and the steel it was made of. Steel is Iron and carbon, my Lore reminded me. Could I add those flavours to the mana? I disrupted the rock again, and while that was happening, I used Macromana Manipulation to grab the mana flavour from the Haladie and mix it with the rock. It was only a minute amount, so I did it again.

After the second time, I was mentally exhausted.

When Myantha saw I had stopped, she asked, “What did you do?”

“I tried disrupting the Trials mana flow and injecting the sense of iron and carbon. I think it may have worked in a tiny way.”

“How?” Myantha asked.

“How what?”

“How did you disrupt the mana, and how did you inject the mana.”

“With Mana disruption and Mana manipulation,” I said in a tone that indicated, obviously.

“Are you a Wizard?”

“I was a Mage.”

No, I asked if you were a Wizard, not a Mage,” she said.

“I don’t know the difference.”

“Wizards are a lost class, and only our oral traditions mention them, not in much detail. They supposedly manipulate Mana directly.”

“Then no,” I said, “I am using skills.”

She looked like she didn’t believe me but didn’t continue the conversation.

“Let's have a look at the next one and see if we can repeat it.” I said, and we moved on.

We went to all six, and I tried to do the same thing to all of them. I don’t know what it would do. Maybe bits of iron ore or carbon would start appearing. Maybe not. Maybe the rats would appear in iron or steel armour. I don’t know. Maybe the whole thing will blow up. We will see.

We cleared the second floor before following my map to the first point. Myatha had some fire spells, I am guessing she had a general Mage class along with the swords.

I looked around. Spiders. A big cavern. Underground. I looked at Myantha. “Have you got any mushrooms on you?”

“Really? Do you think you can seed the level with Mushrooms? What are you trying to do?”

“I am experimenting, and then we will see what happens.”

“A whole town relies on this Trial. You are putting everything at risk.”

“So that is a no then.” She was arguing with me, but she was not stopping me.

“Does it look like I have a bag of Mushrooms?” she said.

“Oh, right. I figured you might have Storage or something.”

“Does it look like I am rich and powerful enough to have Storage?”

“Well, yeah?” I said.

She huffed.

“You know what? I might know a guy.” I said

“You what?”

“I might know a guy with Storage for sale. Let's say around 30 gold?”

“You know a guy with Storage for sale?”

“Well, yeah. Where do you think I got mine?”

“If you have storage, why do you have the spatial Backpack?” she asked.

“Really? I am a Thief. I need to keep up appearances. Do you want one or not?”

“Twenty gold.”

“Twenty-five.” I countered.

“Deal,” she said.

That was good. Ranar said he sold his for thirty silver. He wouldn’t sell me any, though. I could have made a huge profit.

I looked through my storage, particularly the Herb Cupboard and the Vege Bin. The land of the Undying Lord didn’t really major in Herbs. Or veges for that matter. I had some cooking mushrooms, but did I have anything better?

I cast my Mana Web (Sensing), and the spiders were strong here. After them were the rats and lizards. Then, the same rock and earth. Rock and earth were the only things I thought I could affect. We could go with more iron, but that is boring. I have some Infernal and Undead weapons, but I don’t want to introduce them here. I have Venom antidotes. The spiders have Venom. They are weak to fire as well. I could see what my Burning knife produced.

I have an Earth manipulation stone and an Air one. They are too good to risk.

Charms. What if I introduced magic from the charms I have? I have Spark for Fire, Trickle for Water, Wither for Death, Glow for Light, and Dim for Shadow. I don’t want to introduce death or light. Maybe Shadow or Water? I know Shadow the best. Let's try that.

I cast Dim on my hand. We were in pitch black as neither of us needed light, so you couldn't see the charm working. I reached out for the weakest mana flow, started to disrupt it, and then inserted Shadow mana. Once I got a handle on it, it was surprisingly easy. Easier than steel. I knew Shadow much better, but Shadow may have been in the trial already.

Duh! I am standing in a pitch-black cavern and wonder if there is Shadow around. Shadow is absent of light. Don’t tell the Elf about that moment of idiocy.

“What did you do?” Myantha asked.

“I experimented. I am not going to say. We will leave this floor as a test case.”

I could tell she was trying to figure out what I was doing from her senses. She senses my Mana Web (Sensing), but apparently, that is it. She is not a high-level mage.

We went around all six positions, and I injected and maybe enhanced the shadow mana.

One floor to go.